<p>The Prescribing and Medicines Management Group is an online forum that caters for pharmacists wishing to discuss and review any non-confidential topics related to pharmacists prescribing, the utilisation of medicines, and all associated concerns. If you have any questions relating to this topic or would like to discuss a topic or concern then this is the forum. </p>

<p>The aim and objective of this group is to offer pharmacists who work within, or have an interest in this aspect of pharmacy a medium through which they can communicate and share ideas with one another, membership is open to all. </p>

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A new report published by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society this week calls for improvements to the transfer of information about medicines when patients move between care settings. There is a substantial body of evidence that shows when patients move between care providers the risk of miscommunication and unintended changes to medicines remain a significant problem.

"Keeping patients safe when they transfer between care providers: Getting the medicines right" outlines the results of a six-month project involving over 30 healthcare organisations which volunteered to implement RPS guidance on transfer of medicines information. Improving the transfer of information about medicines across all care settings should help to reduce incidents of avoidable harm to patients, improve patient safety and contribute to a reduction in avoidable medicines related admissions and readmissions to hospital.

The key recommendations of the report are:

All community pharmacies should have an NHS.net website address to enable secure communications between secondary and primary care

All suppliers of IT systems to hospitals and general practice should ensure their systems can effectively transfer recommended core content of medicines records

All clinical records should be structured in a recognised and nationally agreed format to assist interoperability and the transfer of information

National sharing of the most effective ways of signposting patients in secondary care to the post discharge Medicine Review Service and New Medicine Service provided by community pharmacists to enable patients to optimise benefits from their medicines

Commissioning of post-discharge MURs for vulnerable patients should be considered as part of the pharmacy contractual frameworks.